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Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Back in late 2014, I finally started to appreciate the taste of traditionally stored teas. Since most of the tea I bought in 2005/6 was newborn sheng to match my tastes of the time, I was forced to scrape the bottom of the barrel on suspect aged stuffs off ebay. To catch you up on this particular strand:

So we continue this story 3 years later on this fine Sunday and brew up both bricks. The furry brick(left) still has white mold over the surface and is not a bad brew with a slight cooling menthol taste. It's nothing I would serve guests but decent enough for a taste now and then again; definitely this brew is leaps more interesting than hongcha and definitely more powerful. I was jittery and jumpy for hours.

The outer surface of the dry brick is clean without any sign of white mold. However when I peel off a few outer leaves, the interior stems show some whitish mold. These bricks are relatively loosely compressed which may have helped. The dry brick still tastes a little harsher, thinner, more bitter than it's furry counterpart. Probably the dry brick won't be able catch up to the furry brick especially in the suboptimal environs of Berkeley. I guess I will give them another go in 2020 but I don't have high expectations. At this point- I'm happy if any of it is mildly drinkable. I didn't have any dried anchovy or squid which I think would be good accompaniment to such basement sheng.

Footnote: Downing trad stored stuff is an ability that one has to keep up like alcohol tolerance. I fell down the shicang ladder drinking nothing but hongchas as of late. I don't expect to make "drink more shicang teas" a 2018 new year resolution but I do need a better scheme to rotate through my inventory.